A new book chronicling the history of Auburn University’s College of Engineering is slated for release this summer. They Came from Auburn: A History of Engineering in the New South spans the period from 1857 to the present. “It will be the definitive history of Auburn’s College of Engineering,” says author Art Slotkin, ‘68 aerospace engineering. “It goes all the way back to the East Alabama Male College when they had just an engineering course, not a degree.”

A full degree in engineering was not offered until theschool became a land-grant college in 1872. This, and many other stories documenting engineering’s development as a college, as well as successes and struggles throughout its more than 100-year history, are featured in the book. When the college celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2009, Dean Larry Benefield asked Slotkin to mark the occasion by writing a history of Auburn Engineering. After retiring from a career in the computer industry, Slotkin earned a master’s degree in the history of technology from Georgia Tech.